“We’re not exactly chummy,” answered Bert with a frown, “but we get on all right. He attends to his affairs and I attend to mine; we don’t have much to say to each other—yet.”
“Pshaw, don’t be nasty, Bert. He’ll be decent if you will, I bet. You know you have a temper sometimes, and——”
“I don’t remember things a thousand years, do I?” asked the other angrily. “Temper! Who wouldn’t have a temper when——”
“There, there, old chap! Don’t get waxy with me. If you do I’ll throw you out of the window!”
Whereupon a scuffle ensued, and Bert’s ill temper passed.
Bert’s description of the existing relations between the occupants of 22 Prince was a true one. He and Hansel “got on all right,” but there wasn’t much chumming. Football seemed to be the only topic which could induce conversation. Sometimes an hour passed in the evening during which not a word was exchanged across the study table. Bert would have been glad to let bygones be bygones, for he liked Hansel, if only because of the latter’s ability to play football; Bert would have found a warm corner in his heart for the sorriest specimen of humanity imaginable had the latter been able to play the game well. But he wasn’t one to make advances even had there been encouragement, which there wasn’t. Hansel was always polite, always amiable, but, so far as Bert could see, didn’t care a row of pins whether his roommate came or went. Life at home wasn’t enlivening to Bert in those days, for he was very dependent upon the society of others for happiness; solitude had small attraction for him and silence still less. As a result he spent most of his time, when study was not absolutely necessary, away from his room.
On the second evening following the conversation recorded with Harry, however, he was at home; study to-night was incumbent. He sat at one side of the table and Hansel at the other. For the better part of an hour each had been immersed in his books and not a word had been said. Finally, Bert pushed his work away, stretched, yawned, and looked at the little clock on the mantel. As the clock was never known to be right, the resulting increase in knowledge wasn’t valuable. He knew plaguy well it wasn’t twenty-six minutes to seven! Hansel raised his head and glanced across at him.
“Going to knock off?” he asked politely.
“Yes, I guess so.” He pined for conversation and wished heartily that the other would stop studying and talk. “What you worrying over?”
“Latin,” was the laconic reply, as Hansel’s head bent over the book again.